The Library's Pforzheimer Collection recently acquired a rare piece of early-19th century Parisian culinary ephemera: a large, printed menu from the food shop at the Hôtel des Américains, which carried international delicacies, wines, and liquors. Opened in 1765, it was the center of the European gourmet world for nearly a century, and its impressive array of offerings could compete with any fine foods boutique in Paris or New York today.

The first proprietor of the Hôtel des Américains delicatessen was Joachim Delavoiepierre (b. 1746), a chemist who specialized in vinification. Although nothing seems to have come of it, he wrote in 1783 to Benjamin Franklin, then-American ambassador to France, seeking permission to pursue a winemaking venture in the fledgling United States. Delavoiepierre was succeeded in business by a Monsieur Labour, whose nephew, Louis-Alexandre Labour, operated the shop under multiple partnerships until shortly before it closed in the 1850s.

Our menu bears the manuscript annotations and signature of Labour the younger: the lower left quadrant of the back page provides space for tallying a customer’s purchases. On December 21, 1822, a "Monsieur Drummond" (probably an Englishman or a Scot) bought 49 francs and 50 centimes' worth of flavored syrups, orange blossom water, and four thieves vinegar (an herb-infused vinegar thought to have antiseptic properties, and still available today).

Hôtel des Américains menu details

The front of the menu is engraved at the top with depictions of the pair of busts that adorned the storefront entrance at 147 Rue St.-Honoré. The "deux têtes noires," African women wearing large earrings and turbans, suggest with not-so-subtle racism the exotic fare inside.

The Hôtel des Américans was known especially as a purveyor of truffles; before the French Revolution, it was one of only two places in all of Paris where one could buy the prized fungus. Our menu offers over a dozen items with truffles as the star ingredient: turkey with truffles, chicken with truffles, foie gras with truffles, pigs' feet stuffed with truffles, and all sorts of truffle-laden pâtés.

Freshly butchered birds on hand include the partridge, the lark, the woodcock, and the tiny songbird called the ortolan, today endangered and illegal to eat. Preparation of the ortolan included blinding the creature, which caused it to overeat and fatten, then drowning it in a vat of brandy before roasting it and serving it whole, to be eaten in one bite, with a napkin covering the eater’s face.

The charcuterie section offers German ham, Irish smoked tongue, Italian sausages, and various specialty meats from different regions of France. Nine different kinds of mustard are listed (with anchovies, with herbs, with garlic, with cornichons); and six vinegars, along with many different vinegar-prepared garnishes including capers, red and green peppers, cocktail onions, mangos, and  mushrooms.

Among the sweets are fresh fruits, jellies, spiced breads, chocolates, and syrups. Seventeen kinds of dried fruit are offered, and twelve different cheeses.

The back of the menu provides a catalog of wines and liquors, and a considerable selection of "English Goods," many of which show the already-strong colonial influence on the English palate: curry, India achars, and a fish sauce called zoobditty mutch. British visitors are further welcomed by the notice: "English language is spoken in that house."

The menu is docketed, probably in the hand of Mr. Drummond, with the store’s name and amount spent, suggesting that it was given to him as a sales receipt; it likely also served as his souvenir of a truly inimitable shopping experience.